The present invention relates to supports and holders for reeling and unreeling strip material, and more particularly to apparatus for loading bulk photographic strip film from cartridges onto camera film feed spools or cassettes in daylight conditions.
The economic advantages of purchasing photographic strip film in bulk quantities are obvious, especially to professional and serious amateur photographers. In current systems, the bulk film of one selected type or format is placed on a reel within a loader under complete darkroom conditions and then dispensed in measured quantities on camera feed spools. Once placed in the loader, the film cannot be removed without exposure except by returning to a darkroom or using a changing bag. Therefore, the photographer usually carries a bulk loader for each type of film, e.g. size, ASA rating, color or black-and-white, he or she anticipates using. As more bulk film loaders are needed to meet a variety of film types, the savings in buying bulk quantities become offset and frequently exceeded by the large inventory of loaders required. Even if only one type of bulk film were used, conventional loaders are not suitable for travelers passing through government custom inspections. A routine search usually will require the bulk film loader to be opened in daylight thus exposing all of the film contained within.
Most bulk film loaders have been designed for the ubiquitous 35 mm camera. However, cameras using medium format film, such as 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7and 6x8 cm, are popular among the professionals and serious amateurs because they give the photographer negatives about two and one-half times the size of 35 mm negatives. Therefore the negatives are much sharper especially when enlarged into prints beyond the 8x10 inch size, and they usually afford better color fidelity. The 6x4.5-cm format in particular, offers substantially no loss of negative due to cropping when enlarged to an 8x10-inch print because the ratios of width to length are nearly equal. Medium format cameras have also become as versatile as high quality 35 mm cameras to the extent they also include the more recent features such as programmed metering and automatic winding.
Consequently, as more medium format cameras come into use there is an increasing demand for a bulk loading film system for medium format film. Heretofore, medium format film has not been amenable to bulk loading because they require leaders at the beginning and end of the film strip, and the entire film strip between leaders must be processed even if only a small segment of frames have been exposed. Large quantities of unexposed film is therefore wasted in processing strip film of lengths determined by the manufacturers. There is currently no simple bulk film loader capable of allowing the photographer to minimize film waste by choosing film strip lengths with leaders of the exact length needed for exposure and processing. Furthermore, due to the excessive length of film between leaders provided by film manufacturers, circular, submersible spool-type development tanks are required. This is because the film lengths preclude the use of short rectangular tanks with their attendant savings in process chemicals.